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<title>To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. by flight815kitsune</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27019177">To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/flight815kitsune/pseuds/flight815kitsune'>flight815kitsune</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>only mostly dead [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>In the Flesh (TV), Sherlock (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, He gets better, Sherlock Holmes Dies, Temporary Character Death, The Rising (In the Flesh)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:01:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>569</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27019177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/flight815kitsune/pseuds/flight815kitsune</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock fell.<br/>He died.<br/>The dead came back to life.</p>
<p>John receives a phone call.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>only mostly dead [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1972150</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>John received the phone call on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. </p>
<p>He was watching a droplet take a meandering route down a windowpane, pen held loosely in hand as he paused in his notes, only to nearly drop it at the sudden ring of  the phone on his desk. The sound was loud and jarring compared to the soft hum of his mobile vibrating. </p>
<p>“Dr. Watson.” He stated, the phone reflexively held by his shoulder as he scribbled a conclusion to the previously abandoned thought.</p>
<p>Mycroft’s always-steady voice had, without any introduction or preamble, spoken the four small words he hadn’t allowed himself to even imagine since this whole mess had started. Four beautiful and terrifying words he had wanted to hear since the dead had begun to walk the earth, since the pale wars, since there had been an empty grave, since before they even knew there would be a <em> body </em> to salvage let alone when they knew there could still be a person underneath it all- “Sherlock has been found.”</p>
<p>His mouth became a desert, long forgotten hope sparked into a blaze. “Yeah?”</p>
<p>“You will be kept informed.” It was an assurance warmer than anyone else would have gotten, but far from comforting.</p>
<p>He couldn’t let himself forget- the rising had changed a lot of people. The Sherlock that had leapt from the roof of St. Barts was not necessarily the Sherlock he once knew. </p>
<p>He might be missing pieces, or have gained a few bullet holes. He may have been exposed to too much water, or too much light, or fire, or wild animals, or any of a number of things that would make his body even more different than those of the others who once again walked the earth. If he responded well to the Neurotryptoline (and there was a chance he wouldn’t respond at all, or that the side effects would be too severe to continue treatment, or that he would not be helped enough to return to a normal life) there was still no guarantee that he would want anything to do with his old life. Sometimes those who survived an experience like that can’t come back, and he can admit to himself that a Sherlock who wanted nothing to do with his regular boring human former flatmate would hurt only slightly less than the thought of a Sherlock who would be forced to remain in a high-security treatment center for the rest of his (second) life.</p>
<p>Still, though, that bright shard of hope demanded to be acknowledged, and all of the questions and uncertainty was nothing compared to that scrap of information- they had found Sherlock. It tore into his chest and lodged there with none of the grace of the bullet that had brought him back to London in the first place. It dug in with barbed edges, impossible to remove and just as impossible to ignore. Mycroft had gaffed him with it, harpooned him. There was no longer any way to escape the potential that those words contained and while the whole situation made the hair on his neck prickle with the sensation that this was all, at its most basic level, a trap... he could not bring himself to try and yank free.</p>
<p>One of the simplest truths of the world had remained unchanged even when the rest of the natural order had not- John Watson believed in Sherlock Holmes.</p>
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